I’ve just pruned a large laurel hedge that was about 10ft and have serious amount of stuff to deal with, max thickness about 2 inches but mostly long slender thinner pieces about 5ft long. I was going to hire a chipper but read on one of the hire sites that you can’t shred green stuff and you need to let it dry, presumably it cloggs the shredder? I’m not really keen on waiting a few months. Does anyone have any experience with shredding a hedge or similar and is it true you need to let it dry out?
Sorry. It is just a favourite moment from my favourite film. I cannot think ‘woodchipper’ without seeing it.
Bruce
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It’s not advisable to put soft green material through a shredder (it’s not really necessary either) but laurel leaves aren’t soft - they’re quite leathery. And the wooden stems will help to keep things clear. In fact, that was precisely what I was doing for about three hours at an English Heritage site this morning.
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I can’t speak from personal experience, but I have watched our hedge/tree surgeon do all sorts here over the last three years and he always chips everything except the thicker bits (say more than 5 cm diameter) on the spot and takes it away. He uses a petrol engine-driven chipper on wheels.
The thinker branches he cuts into pieces and takes them away like that.
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Why not ask Woodywoodpecker?
I don’t even know what a woodchipper is….
Shredders are either electric or petrol powered and are fed from above, like in the movie clip.
Chippers are much larger, heavier, towed machines for heavier duty work. All the ones I have ever used had diesel engines powering a rotating flywheel plus hydraulics to operate the rollers that grab branches into the hopper fed parallel to the ground.
I spent about 6 hours trimming/cutting up a smallish willow weeping willow.
What I cut off were a mix of smallish branches and green growth.
My small hand clippers were used to make it smaller to go to dump.
No issue with cutting it up but I did wonder whether a electric shredder would be easier, but like you concerned whether it would just clog up.
The joy of moving from a 16x40ft garden to approx 60x100 and not being a gardener 
Suspect you’d be fine trying to shred the bulk of the laurel as is. It’s soft leaves/foliage that tends to clog shredders easily.
The 2" diameter pieces are probably beyond an electric consumer grade shredder - if you were looking for one of those make sure you see the maximum diameter - even if below that some angulated branches might be awkward for the machines to pull in.
I assume however you’re looking at hiring one - depending on pricing a non-electric one might be best to get things done quickly.
With the consumer electric ones there are different designs - the cheapest tended to have spinning blades and are not as good with larger twigs/branches.
I had a nice Bosch shredder which had a ‘toothed cog’ like cutting/crushing mechanism which pulled the waste in cutting it against a smooth metallic plate (probably aluminium). Replaced it with another Bosch with a rotating cutting mechanism which looks a bit like the body of a shuttlecock in terms of shape. This one is quite poor in comparison to the original one which I still have but is temperamental starting up after maybe 15-20 years of use.
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The green element of Laurel and the wood contains cyanide.
Laurel leaves can take a very long time to dry out, due to their glossy protective coating. I’ve seen them looking virtually unchanged after several months left lying on the ground, so unless they get some very hot sunshine on them I think you’ll be waiting forever.
I suspect you’ll be OK with a reasonably powerful chipper like the petrol or diesel types you can hire, as long as you take it slowly and clear it out as soon as there is any sign of clogging.
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In significant quantity? Are any precautions advised when cutting it?
Apple pips the same I think.
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No but you have to be careful if you say burnt ‘green’ wood in the house.
If you leave the wood a year or so to mature the cyanide contain reduces so you can burn it.
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Thanks for that - I did cut back some laurel a couple of years ago and chopped up the thicker stems to burn. They must have had at least 2 years to dry out by now.
As AndyP points out, Laurel contains cyanide. So chip/shred in the open air, not in a confined space. And don’t even think about taking the chippings to the dump in your car. Straight onto the compost heap.
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I’ve just chipped an old beech hedge. A three inch commercial chipper will do the job, but may just chuck out twigs. They are designed to be used on green wood.
I’ve used rotating blades, discs and hammers as the cutting head. I would go for a reputable brand like Timberwolf.
Don’t forget your PPE: boots, gloves, helmet, preferably with a visor, and ear protection.
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I have a Lidl/Parkside shredder, the cog type. It happily eats holly, pyracatha, brambles and beech up to about 30mm as it is cut. It will manage autumn shredding of crocosmia leaves as long as you are prudent about how much you feed through at a time.
As regards the laurel/cyanide question, the RHS says this Woody waste: using as a mulch / RHS
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My neighbour has just had a landscape gardener in with a commercial diesel engined chipper to ‘process’ five downed fir trees. It is quite savage the sheer volume of material the shredders can pull through and munch. There is a lot of green material in the fir tree branches and it is no problem for a large shredder.
I hired one last summer and, under the supervision of my relatives who were tree surgeons in their past, we fed branches from various tree species and high green content material from fir trees and laurels. These machines need to be treated with respect and I would only recommend hiring one if you have an experienced operator alongside. Ear defenders are essential and much respect and caution when near the feeder. Oh and please take care where you have pointed the chute through which the shredded material is expelled - it comes out at quite a pace and can cover quite a distance - neighbour alert!
Peter
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